cardinal roots
by rudimentaryflair
Summary: In Zoro's defense, it had been a very robbable garden. A Zoro/Sanji modern!AU meet-cute.


Look. Zoro's not an asshole.

Sure, he'll chew with his mouth open, burp at the table, and jaywalk, but Zoro's not the type of person who takes things that don't belong to him, he's not someone who will, you know, steal the flowers out of poor, unsuspecting people's gardens instead of going into a store like a normal person. Well, at least, not until very recently.

Okay, Zoro's _kind of_ an asshole, but it's not like he's filching Fabergé eggs or the irreplaceable jewelry of someone's late grandmother ― they're just plants, okay, nobody's gonna be missing them that much. Besides, he's not about to show up at Kuina's place empty-handed, and acquiring flowers the legal way is out of the question, on account of him being broke as shit.

Alright, fine, Zoro's an asshole, but in his defense, it had been a very robbable garden.

The first time had been more out of convenience than anything else. He'd been on his way to visit Kuina when the roads moved and turned what should have been a ten-minute stroll into nearly an hour of wandering around, trying to pick his way through a maze of white picket fences and cuboid bushes. It was around this time that Zoro realized, _fuck,_ he forgot to bring flowers, even though Koshiro reminded him to twenty different times before he left.

Here's the thing: Zoro's a simple man; he sees the world in very simple terms. And the simple facts of the matter were these:

He didn't have time to backtrack to a flower shop.

Flower bouquets costed way too much money anyway.

It would be really easy to reach into the garden beside him and yank a handful of petunias from the ground.

It was supposed to be a one time thing, which doesn't explain why Zoro is currently leaning over the fence for the fifth time this month, pulling a dozen soft purple flowers from the soil by their stems. The events leading to his role as this neighborhood's incognito plant thief are muddy, and while Zoro is used to running around without a plan, he hadn't expected the step after 'move out of the city' to be 'dedicate yourself to a life of plant crime'.

A small part of traitorously wishes he was still roommates with Nami. She would know what to do in this situation. Hell, she would never have gotten _into _this situation, with all those wads of cash she kept stashed in various nooks and crannies around their apartment for 'emergencies'.

Now that Zoro thinks about it, there's a decent chance Nami may also have been involved in crime, albeit a different kind.

"Must be somebody special, if you're willing to steal for them," a voice says from behind him.

Zoro straightens up so fast his spine nearly disengages from his hips. A few dirt clods go flying.

Leaning on the fence a few feet away is a guy. His most striking feature is his only visible eyebrow, which curls obnoxiously like the spiral of a snail's shell. In his stunned silence, Zoro lets himself trail his gaze from the eyebrow to the flop of blonde hair hanging over one of his brilliant blue eyes, to the high arch of his nose, to the cigarette dropping casually from his mouth. The guy dresses like he grew up with gold rattles and silk bibs, with his perfectly tailored suit and shiny shoes, but the way he slouches against the fence, all loose-limbed and laid-back, says otherwise.

Then, because the universe especially hates him today, Zoro realizes that the guy is hot. Like, really hot. Like, _really_ really hot.

Fuck.

Blondie smirks at Zoro, whose soul is attempting to leave his body through the pores in his skin. "That for a girl?" Blondie asks, motioning at the flowers clutched in his hand.

"What's it to you?" Zoro asks defensively. He tries not to feel like a six-year old caught with his hand in a cookie jar.

Blondie shrugs, unanswering. The cigarette bobs in the corner of his mouth, unlit; the idiot's not even smoking the damn thing. Unfortunately for Zoro, this does not make him any less attractive.

Zoro jerks his thumb towards the house he's currently robbing. "You gonna report me?"

"Don't need to," Blondie says. "That's my house."

Well _fuck._

"Ah," says Zoro eloquently. They stare at each other for an uncomfortable length of time.

There are a lot of things Zoro expects Blondie to do. Call the cops on him. Press charges. Chase him off the property with a large broom. Worst case scenario, Zoro gets sued in court for unknowingly stealing priceless luxury flowers. Best case scenario, the guy politely, but firmly tells him off.

What he doesn't expect is for Blondie to push himself off the fence, slide his cigarette into his suit pocket, and say, "Alright, lead the way."

"What," Zoro says.

"I'd like to meet whichever lovely lady has had the pleasure of receiving my flowers," Blondie says. "And maybe show her that she can do a lot better than a mossy neanderthal like you."

"Oi fuck you, Curlybrow," Zoro snaps, and Blondie squawks in outrage, slapping a hand over his eyebrow. "My name's Zoro, not mossy whatever."

"Sanji," Blondie replies. "Pleasure to meet you, you shitty flower thief. Now lead the way."

And, well, it's either that or get arrested, so after another long pause, Zoro starts his walk to Kuina's again, Sanji matching his pace and eyeing the dirty roots of his flowers in Zoro's grip with disapproval. Taking Sanji to meet Kuina is actually one of the better, more convenient scenarios. If it means he won't have 'plant thief' emblazoned on his resume for the rest eternity, Zoro will take it.

There's one small problem: Zoro has no idea how he's gonna break it to Sanji that they're heading to a graveyard.

See, while Sanji had been technically correct about the flowers being for a girl (though Kuina would've sliced him in half for the implications of that sentence), Zoro has the sneaking suspicion that Sanji may not be exactly clear on the overall condition of said girl. Which is, well. Dead. Departed. Six feet under.

Somewhere out there, Kuina is laughing at him. Zoro takes a minute to despair at what his life has come to. He briefly considers taking a detour to Nami's new place and passing her off as his 'girl', but 1) she lives all the way across town and 2) he honestly doesn't think his wallet would survive that encounter. Frankly, being Nami's friend is a lot like being in deep with a loan shark.

Zoro doesn't get a lot of time to figure out what to say to Sanji, because it's just his luck that the roads decide not to move today, and the five-minute walk actually takes five minutes, instead of ten, or thirty, or fifty. Which is great, except for the fact that it's absolutely horrible for him.

The stone pillars flanking the gate to the graveyard slowly come into view, the metal arch spelling out _East Blue Cemetery_ in straight black letters abrupt and stark against the vapid sky.

"A cemetery?" Sanji asks as they approach the entrance. He stops just outside the gate and glances around at the gravestones. "Pretty bleak for a date, isn't it?"

Zoro just looks at him from where he's standing on the grass, waiting for the other shoe to drop. He sees the moment it sinks in: Sanji's eye goes wide and his mouth closes with an audible _click._ The confident and lazy air around him slides right off, like a second layer of clothing being shed away, until all that's left is an awkward guy in a tie uncomfortably wringing his hands.

Zoro sighs, because, well, he's a simple man. There's really only one way to proceed. "You wanted to meet her, right? Come on."

"What?" Sanji's head snaps up and he takes a step backwards. "No!"

"You're here already," Zoro reasons.

"Well, I didn't ― " Sanji splutters, "I didn't ― you don't have to - you've only just _met_ me."

"So?"

"Oh my god." Sanji tears a hand through his hair furiously and hurries over to Zoro. "This is ridiculous."

"Your eyebrows are ridiculous," Zoro informs him.

"Fuck off," Sanji says, but there's no heat to it.

Kuina's grave is modest. There's a small plot of grass, grown over from when they put her in the ground, and a plain square stone with her name engraved in large letters. Koshiro hadn't known what else to write, the relationship between him and his daughter strained and complicated. Zoro privately thinks Kuina wouldn't have wanted anything anyway; she wasn't the type for embellishments or wordy quotes.

Stooping down, Zoro brushes some leaves and dust from the stone, then sits down on the grass. Sanji lingers a few paces behind him.

"Hey Kuina." Zoro sets the flowers over her name, their dark petals striking against the somber gray of the grave marker. He's usually not much of a talker, but for some reason, today is different. "Hope you're well. I'm doing fine. The others are fine too. Luffy ripped one of Nami's jackets yesterday ― the three thousand dollar one she bought last week ― and she punched a hole in his wall. And, uh, there's this new dojo I found by my place. The guy who runs it dresses like a vampire; his name's Mihawk, which is a weird fucking name, but he's really good with swords."

"Also," Zoro adds, as an afterthought, "I stole these flowers from this jackass's garden and he made me bring him to meet you." He turns and looks expectantly at Sanji, who is standing with his hands in his pockets and chewing anxiously on his cigarette. It's still unlit.

Sanji takes a few small steps forward. His leg brushes against Zoro's shoulder. "Good morning, Miss Kuina," Sanji says, which makes Zoro grin as the mental image of Kuina decking Sanji flashes through his mind. "I hope you're aware that you're friends with a thief."

"That's what 'stole' implies, dumbass," Zoro says, and Sanji kicks him in the elbow, making him swear.

"Be quiet, thief," Sanji tells him. Then, to the grave, "I don't know how you deal with this brute."

"You are such an asshole," Zoro says.

"Who's flowers are these?" Sanji counters.

"I brought them."

"You _stole_ them!"

"I don't see what the big deal is. Just grow some more."

"You don't see what the big ― do you know how long it takes to grow these?!"

"I have better things to do than dote on plants all day."

_"Listen here, you shitty mossball ― "_

o-o-o

Zoro ends up walking Sanji back to his house. It's the least he can do, after carrying off Sanji's plants every week for the past month. He figures that after this, he can just find another garden to steal from, or he can start living off box ramen to be able to afford actual flowers. In turn, Sanji will never have to see him again. It's a win-win.

At least, that's what he tells himself. In reality, the prospect of having to take a different path to the cemetery is looking increasingly grim.

"So Mosshead," Sanji says conversationally, and it's impressive how much it feels like Zoro got injected with a syringe of pure, unadulterated rage. He has to blink twice to get rid of the red tinge to his vision. "You still owe me for pillaging my garden."

"I do not," Zoro denies immediately, and Sanji glares at him with surprising ferocity. He relents and pats down his pockets. "I don't have any money on me right now," he says grudgingly, "but I can ― "

"No," Sanji interrupts. "I don't want your money." He takes a deep breath and seems to recollect himself. "You should come dine at my restaurant."

"Your restaurant," Zoro says flatly.

"Yeah, I'm the sous chef of a restaurant," Sanji says. "You know, one of those places civilized people go to when they want to eat. They have tables and chairs and everything."

"I know what a restaurant is," Zoro snaps.

"Good," says Sanji. "The place is called the Baratie. It's on the corner of Cocoyashi and Syrup, you can't miss it."

Zoro holds up a hand. "Wait, wait a second," he says. "I stole your flowers, and now you want me to repay you … by letting you feed me?"

"I know it's unconventional," Sanji says, and then doesn't finish, which doesn't clear anything up. He does, however, smile at Zoro, wide and bright and warm, which does very dangerous things to Zoro's gut.

Zoro's mouth is dry. He unsticks his tongue from the roof of his mouth. "Cool," he says in a surprisingly normal voice. "Still got no money."

"Mossheads eat free."

"That's a terrible way to run a business."

"At least I can afford to buy a decent bouquet," Sanji says, reminding Zoro of the harsh, flowerless and Sanjiless future that awaits him.

The thing is, Zoro kind of likes Sanji. Zoro kind of likes Sanji a lot, actually, likes the way he's really easy to piss off and the juxtaposition of how he holds himself, and how right it had felt to have him beside Zoro by Kuina's grave. Unfortunately, the step after robbing someone of their greenery is generally not 'ask for their number', so Zoro's kind of fucked.

When they reach Sanji's house, it's awkward. Sanji unlocks the gate and they both stand there silently, on opposite sides of the fence, neither wanting to leave first. Sanji fingers his cigarette nervously. Zoro shoves his hands into his pockets and glares at the ground. His eyes travel to the bald patch of dirt he'd created last week when he ripped several yellow carnations from the ground, to the bald patch beside it that had once carried a variety of different colored tulips, to another patch, now void of bellflowers. Come to think of it, the garden is just one big bald spot now, the soil broken occasionally by the random white bloom of bindweed.

"She was my friend," Zoro finds himself saying suddenly. "We fought a lot. Bickered, the way friends do. I never got to do nice things for her." Sanji makes a noise of sympathy, which should be annoying, but is somehow comforting instead. "Flowers are, I don't know." He can feel the back of his neck warming. "They're nice, I guess."

"Tell you what," Sanji says, after a long silence. "I'll grow more. Hell, I'll grow extra, for your friend."

Zoro frowns. "You don't have to ― "

Sanji holds up a hand, cutting him off. "Shut up, I wasn't finished." He sticks his cigarette back into his shirt pocket for the third time. "You can come by whenever you want," he says. "They're just flowers, anyway."

It's bewildering, how simple Sanji makes it sound, considering he's known Zoro for less than an hour. "You've known me for less than an hour," Zoro says.

"You've proven yourself astonishingly bearable," says Sanji. "I know, I was surprised too."

"Oi."

"That being said, you're still a shitty thief." Sanji reaches over the fence and pokes him on the chest, hard. "Eight, tonight, at the Baratie. Don't be late."

Zoro raises his eyebrows. "Is this a date?" And then, "Should I bring flowers?"

Sanji gives him a withering look. "Not if you're going to be stealing them from some poor sap's garden."

"So just yours then," Zoro clarifies.

"Just mine," Sanji agrees.

"You sure it's wise to be giving me free rein like this?"

"I'm just doing my civic duty to keep you from wreaking havoc in other people's yards."

"You're such an asshole," Zoro says, and is promptly horrified that it comes out fond.

"One other thing," Sanji calls out from behind him, as he begins to walk away. Zoro pauses midstep, straining his ears to listen. "Stay the hell away from my vegetables!"

Zoro grins all the way home.


End file.
